The name alone conjures up strong images for many in the autism communities. If you think vaccines cause autism, he is a hero. For many others, he has brought shame to the greater autism community.
In addition, I know many who think that Andrew Wakefield’s time has come and gone and we should just ignore him now. To those, I apologize, but the recent information is just too important to ignore.
Kev would be able to show the annoyance that Dr. Wakefield’s research has caused many of us in the autism community. It would be a better read than this–a post written by someone who finds the entire affair sad. Too much harm has been caused by what even before today was already pretty obviously bad science. It’s just a sad story that has just gotten sadder.
For those who may not know, Dr. Andrew Wakefield was the lead author on the papers which attempted to link autism to the MMR vaccine. The story is so long and tortuous that it is difficult to know what to include and what to leave out. You know what, if you don’t already know the story–count yourself lucky and skip this post! How’s that for an introduction?
Brian Deer took a closer look than most (all?) journalists at Dr. Wakefield’s story. He exposed the fact that Dr. Wakefield’s patients were litigants claiming MMR caused autism. He also exposed the fact that Dr. Wakefield and some on his team were well paid for their efforts.
It is very likely that Mr. Deer’s investigation is what prompted the General Medical Council (GMC) to investigate Dr. Wakefield’s actions in this research. As part of that investigation, the GMC has collected medical histories of the subjects of Dr. Wakefield’s study. And, Brian Deer has had access to these data, and they don’t match what was presented by Dr. Wakefield’s team.
Before we look at what was said in the papers and what the medical histories actually indicated, let’s look at the introduction from the original Lancet paper:
We saw several children who, after a period of apparent normality, lost acquired skills, including communication. They all had gastrointestinal symptoms, including abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and bloating and, in some cases, food intolerance. We describe the clinical findings, and gastrointestinal features of these children.
Compare that to what’s here’s Brian Deer’s article, MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism.
Ouch.
Here’s a more thorough article, again by Mr. Deer:
Hidden records show MMR truth
A Sunday Times investigation has found that altered data was behind the decade-long scare over vaccination
As a short sidetrack, Mr. Deer isn’t the only one suggesting that there were problems with the Wakefield studies.
Wakefield claimed (in a separate paper from the original Lancet article) that his team found evidence of persistent measles virus in gut biopsies from the autistic children he saw. In the Omnibus hearing, a member of Wakefield’s team told the story of how the data which clearly disagreed with Wakefield’s conclusions was ignored.
Or, to put it another way, Dr. Chadwick [note correction] told Dr. Wakefield that he (Bustin) had data which directly contradicted the results Wakefield was going to publish. This should have quashed the paper, and, yet, not mention is even made of it by Wakefield et al.
But, back to the Brian Deer report.
Let’s look at a few examples from Mr. Deer’s story. There were 12 children in the original study. Mr. Deer refers to them as child 1 through child 12. Mr. Deer looks at them individually..
Child 11 had a “positive” test for measles RNA by Wakefield’s team. The father had 3–yes 3!–other labs test the same biopsy samples. Result? No sign of measles.
Here’s a bit about child one from Mr. Deer’s story:
In the paper this claim would be adopted, with Wakefield and his team reporting that Child One’s parents said “behavioural symptoms” started “one week” after he received the MMR.
The boy’s medical records reveal a subtly different story, one familiar to mothers and fathers of autistic children. At the age of 9½ months, 10 weeks before his jab, his mother had become worried that he did not hear properly: the classic first symptom presented by sufferers of autism.
It’s very tempting to quote example after example, but I’ll just end up copying the entire story. I encourage you to read the story, there are numerous examples of how many of the 12 subjects of Wakefield’s study were not previously normal.
Rather than pick all the examples of discrepancies about development of Wakefield’s subjects, how about the second part of the question: did these kids all show GI problems? Again, there are numerous examples in Mr. Deer’s story. Here’s an excerpt.
The most striking change of opinion came in the case of Child Three, a six-year-old from Huyton, Merseyside. He was reported in the journal to be suffering from regressive autism and bowel disease: specifically “acute and chronic nonspecific colitis”. The boy’s hospital discharge summary, however, said there was nothing untoward in his biopsy.
A Royal Free consultant pathologist questioned a draft text of the paper. “I was somewhat concerned with the use of the word ‘colitis’,” Susan Davies, a co-author, told the ongoing GMC inquiry into the ethics of how the children were treated, in September 2007.
“I was concerned that what we had seen in these children was relatively minor.”
Not only are there problems in the reported information and the records, one of the co-authors is indicating that the paper overplayed the data they had.
Sorry, but this all just makes me more sad. Sometimes bad science can be, well a little funny. Sometimes just annoying. This is just really sad.
“A Sunday Times investigation has found that altered data was behind the decade-long scare over vaccination”
What more can be said?
(note: I edited this shortly after publishing it. The substance was not changed)
Left Brain Right Brain 
I think it might be helpful to point out that all three doctors have been relentlessy grilled about the 12 cases at the present hearing, and you would think if Wakefield was changing data it would have emerged. I don’t think the prosecution counsel made much headway with proposition that the children did not have serious GI problems – and in fact this aspect of the case had already largely unravelled in 2007 when most of the prosecution witnesses gave evidence very helpful to the defence. Loads of senior professionals, and not just the three doctors on trial were involved in clinical decision making about the children. I don’t believe that the prosecution has substantiated its case, either that children were part of a formal study or that they were involved in legal action at the time the investigations were carried out. The hearing has also heard that Profs Walker-Smith and Murch held quite independent views on the issue from Wakefield, and it was they who in consultation with other professionals decided on colonoscopies on grounds of clinical need (not part of Wakefield’s brief).
Personally, I would be surprised if anything happened at all to Walker-Smith and Murch as a result of the hearing.
The suggestion that 12 professionals allowed Wakefield to change the data underneath their noses, and this has not been previously discovered after 5 years of hostile investigation strikes me as somewhat implausible.
Of course, you can’t tell what the panel will decide but generally speaking if things were going Brian Deer’s way at the hearing I think we would have heard rather more from him about it.
Nothing leads me to believe that the allegations could be remotely true.
Don’t any of you guys on here get distressed on my behalf, my only interest is simply to have an eye to the truth. We on here are not the only ones left wondering if, Mr Deer’s allegations are false , his boss editor at The Sunday Times Mr John Witherow is just now pondering his future, response to the letter below and if Mr Deer is false or not?. Whoever is genuine isn’t going to be decided on here quite simply one of the big riding factors now is the Judge Eady letters of complaint and Mr Deer isn’t showing them or defending his stance of not revealing them…the snowball has just got another foot thicker..
letter to Mr Deer’s boss Mr John Witherow
A letter received by Editor Witherow late yesterday charges:-
The journalist Brian Deer and The Sunday Times, London have breached the overall obligations of the PCC Code regarding the “duty to maintain the highest professional standards” and The Sunday Times is also in breach by publishing such a story. The journalist Brian Deer has demonstrated a remarkable lack of professionalism, a disregard for professional ethics and an obsessive interest in Dr Wakefield, belying the detachment, objectivity and impartiality of a modern professional journalist in the 21st Century.
Mr Deer has demonstrated gross breaches of professional ethics in his behaviour and reporting, including his personal interest in making the complaints which have led to the extraordinary and intensive General Medical Council proceedings against Dr Andrew Wakefield. In short, Mr Deer stands to lose professionally should his complaints to the GMC prove not to be upheld and he has a personal interest in publishing stories to prejudice the GMC panel against Dr Wakefield to see that they are, which seems could well be one of the purposes of the story under complaint. Very much the same charges could be levelled at The Sunday Times itself in its reporting and that of its sister paper, The Times, London.“ [Full text below]
Mr. Stone, your premise is so far wrong as to be a joke.
“and you would think if Wakefield was changing data it would have emerged”
It just did! Read Mr. Deer’s stories.
Perhaps you missed these paragraphs.
Stone would you mind trying for a little honesty rather than your usual. You must know that the fabricated data charges are not in front of the GMC. They may be later or they may be handed on elsewhere but you do know they form no part of current proceedings and Deer himself explained why. At the pace this part time committee moves, more charges would be enough to topple proceedings. As for your plausibility, well that’s all you ever had and it pales into insignificance against the actual charges so why don’t we possess our souls in patience and see what the GMC actually does.
What you believe to be reality isn’t terribly persuasive since so far you’ve managed to avoid the bits you didn’t seem to want, like the absence of ethical oversight, the publication of data knowing that it was nothing more than a string of false positives, the huge financial conflict of interest undisclosed. Actually accepting legal aid moneys without letting anyone know about it is as low as one can go. The sheer size of any of these would be enough to make a reasonable person pause, which lets you out of the realm of reasonable people.
And, if they are found to be true by people other than Mr. Deer? Then the question is whether you can’t believe the allegations because they are from Mr. Deer, or because your loyalty to Dr. Wakefield won’t allow it.
In either case, it demonstrates a clear bias.
Given the previous legal action against Mr. Deer (which Dr.Wakefield lost), it seems a fairly safe bet that the editor looked very closely at the information that led Mr. Deer to his conclusions.
Did you notice the irony when you wrote that?
Try addressing the issue of whether Dr. Wakefield’s conclusions have any shred of validity should Mr. Deer’s story be true.
I seem to recall that question has been posed to you before.
Simply your missing the point, is simply the Judge Eady letters all the above is no more than “smoke and mirrors “by Mr Deer .GRoing by his non defence of his stand of not showing The Judge Eady letters Dr Wakefield shoudnt even be up in front of the hearing ..
This makes no sense whatsoever not in English and not even with judicious rearranging.
“Simply your missing the point, is simply the Judge Eady letters all the above is no more than “smoke and mirrors “by Mr Deer .GRoing by his non defence of his stand of not showing The Judge Eady letters Dr Wakefield shoudnt even be up in front of the hearing ..”
What the fish has disintegrated into.
Sorry i was distracted and my thumb hit the enter button on the keypad and the post went of half cocked with me hitting the keyboard trying to stop it as it went. …..anyway, simply point is no Judge Eady letters no Kudos and all the above points are just irrelevant based on questions at the GMC designed in a manner to make Dr Wakefield look incompetent ,which if you’ve ever seen any of his lectures you would be laughed at for suggesting it even in your thoughts that the man is incompetent
.Put me out of my misery where’s The Judge Eady Letters…
So how about it, no one can defend the claims repeated in several places (some linked to in this thread) that the allegations of scientific fraud have been shown to be false? Let’s see how it is that they have been shown to be false.
Simply Dr Wakefield has defended his practices in his reply to Mr Deers “false allegations”
Click to access Deer%20response.pdf
quite simply how can anyone better Dr Wakefield’s words without mis quoting him?
If Mr Deer cant supply The Judge Eady letters of complaint is it justified to demand answers that only Dr Wakefield can answer himself ,which he has done as above..
Dr Davies was examined for two whole days at the GMC hearing, so perhaps Mr Deer would have had to be under-ingenious not to find at least a single sentence she uttered which might be helpful to his case. Not certain that he has represented the burden of her evidence, though.
http://www.cryshame.co.uk//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=108&limit=1&limitstart=4
PS I also agree with One Queer Fish that Deer will not have a shred of credibility until he produces those documents.
http://spectrumpublications.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Bad-Justice-Bad-Journalism-A-Maligned-Doctor-And-A-Dead-Mother.html&Itemid=275&author=bfischkin
Bad Justice, Bad Journalism, A Maligned Doctor And A Dead Mother
“GRoing by his non defence of his stand of not showing The Judge Eady letters Dr Wakefield shoudnt even be up in front of the hearing ..”
Even if Mr. Deer were the complainant, which he denies, then the GMC would know it and would have decided to proceed with its investigation anyway. Obviously, even if Mr. Deer were the complainant, it has no bearing on whether Dr. Wakefield should be up in front of the hearing.
While I agree that information from a reporter shouldn’t be the sole basis of anybody’s conclusions about what really happened, I doubt that the GMC is relying on newspaper reporters to make its determination of Dr. Wakefield’s fitness to practice. The same is true of the special masters’ conclusions about Dr. Wakefield’s work in the Snyder and Hazlehurst cases. Evidence that Dr. Wakefield’s work was unsupported at best, and fraudulent at worst, came from the testimony of Dr. MacDonald, Dr. Rima, Dr. Chadwick, Dr. Bustin, Dr. Griffin and Dr. Fombonne. This is the kind of evidence that Dr. Wakefield has to worry about. Whether Brian Deer is a de-facto complainant in the GMC proceeding is beside the point.
Joseph on February 21st, 2009 22:33:53
All the articles stating that the scientific fraud allegations against Andrew Wakefield have been shown to be false are clearly a case of argument by assertion (and outright lying).
Let’s see if Isabella Thomas, Fish and Stone are able to demonstrate that the allegations are false.
Joseph,
The truth will out.
So you’re admitting those are simply assertions, and you currently have no way to truly claim the allegations are false. Thanks.
In fact, Wakefield’s response appears to be a tacit admission of the facts in dispute, except he’s shifting the blame.
Anne quite simply your attempts to dumb down the importance of the Judge Eady letters is desperate. Mr Deer “de-facto complainant “ has obviously an opposite position on this to yourself hence his robust defence..as for Bustin et-al they were trying to reduce the political pressure that was on them at the time hence the change of evidence…
The Best Of British Journalism Mealanie Phillips writes
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3362116/a-deer-in-the-headlights.thtml
First he threatened to sue the TV station, denying that he had laid the initial complaint which formed the bulk of the GMC inquiry and claiming instead that the GMC had approached him for information about Wakefield following his stories:
I did not lay the initial complaint against Wakefield. This allegation is a fabrication, albeit rather a small one in the MMR issue. The GMC asked me for my journalistic evidence arising from published stories. It was my public duty to supply my findings to this statutory regulator.
Well, various people did think that Brian Deer’s complaint was the trigger for the GMC inquiry. One of those people, it appears, was Brian Deer. Screenshots record that, on his website, Deer previously boasted that he had instigated the GMC hearing. In May 2007, his website noted:
GMC inquiry: After submissions by Brian Deer to the UK General Medical Council, the doctors’ regulatory body announced a public inquiry in to the affair. Sunday Times December 12 2004.
By last week, however, the wording had been changed to:
GMC inquiry: After Brian Deer’s reports, the UK General Medical Council, the doctors’ regulatory body, announced a public inquiry into the affair. The Sunday Times, December 12 2004.
In May 2007, he wrote on his website:
Pending a General Medical Council [GMC] fitness to practice panel hearing – arising from the investigation set out on this page… (my emphasis)
Those highlighted words have now vanished from the website, which uses instead this formulation:
Following Brian Deer’s investigation, and charges laid against Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch by the General Medical Council…
The perception that the GMC was investigating Deer’s complaints about Wakefield was shared by no less a person than a High Court judge. In a libel ruling in November 2006 arising from a Channel 4 Dispatches programme about the Wakefield affair, Mr Justice Eady noted that:
Well before the programme was broadcast [Mr Deer] had made a complaint to the GMC about the Claimant. His communications were made on 25 February, 12 March and 1 July 2004. In due course, on 27 August of the same year, the GMC sent the Claimant a letter notifying him of the information against him.
Last week, Deer claimed that Eady was ‘mistaken’ and that he had not been the ‘complainant’ in the GMC hearing. In the current narrative of the affair posted on his website, after noting that on March 6 2004 some of the authors of the original Lancet paper ‘retracted’ the interpretation that had been placed upon it, he goes on:
Shortly before this retraction [for the retracted “interpretation” text, check the opening abstract of the Lancet paper], the General Medical Council announced its own investigation into the affair, which it said raised questions over Wakefield’s fitness to practice medicine. GMC officials then approached Brian Deer and asked if, in the public interest, he would pass them his findings, and later requested him to supply his research materials – including pivotal documents – to the council’s retained lawyers, at the firm of Field Fisher Waterhouse [FFW] in London. Deer, however, is not the complainant in the case – which was brought on the GMC’s own initiative – and his information has been compounded with submissions, including complaints, from dozens of other sources, including parents directly involved.
To prove that he was not the complainant, he cites a letter written to him in May 2005 by the GMC’s lawyers, Field Fisher Waterhouse. This ran as follows:
I write further to your telephone conversation with Peter Swain last Thursday seeking clarification in relation to your role in the above General Medical Council (“GMC”) proceedings.
I have now had the opportunity to review the GMC’s files. My understanding is that further to your articles appearing in the Sunday Times in February 2004 in relation to your investigation into Dr Andrew Wakefield and the MMR vaccine, you were approached by GMC case officer Tim Cox-Brown, who asked you to supply the GMC with further information regarding this matter.
Your situation as a journalist who has carried out an investigation into the conduct of the practitioners in question is unusual for the GMC. I note from the GMC and FFW’s correspondence files that there does appear to have been some confusion in relation to your role in these proceedings.
In GMC ‘complainant’ cases an individual will have approached the GMC with a complaint against a particular practitioner. If the GMC decides to hold an inquiry, legal representation is offered to the complainant for preparation and presentation of the case before the Professional Conduct Committee.
As stated in Peter Swain’s letter to you dated 16 December 2004, your role in this matter is that of ‘informant’ rather than ‘complainant’. This is due to the fact that the conduct of the practitioners in question has not affected you directly and clearly involves issues of a wider public interest…
But what Deer does not reveal is that on February 25, 2004, three days after his article attacking Wakefield had been published in the Sunday Times, he had written to the GMC in these terms:
Following an extensive inquiry for the Sunday Times into the origins of the public panic over MMR, I write to ask your permission to lay before you an outline of evidence that you may consider worthy of evaluation with respect of the possibility of serious professional misconduct on the part of the above named registered medical practitioners. [Andrew Wakefield, John Walker Smith and Simon Murch.]
If Deer had previously been approached by the GMC for this information — presumably in the two days that elapsed between publication of his article and this letter — this was a strange form of words. For he made no mention that it had thus approached him. Instead, he asked the GMC for permission to lay out his evidence before it. So how can this apparently direct contradiction be explained?
One possibility is that Deer had not previously been approached by the GMC, and that there was some other explanation for its lawyers’ letter to him (it does not say, for example, precisely when its case officer had asked him for further information).
But if the GMC had indeed already approached Deer before he wrote to it, then it follows that his form of words was highly disingenuous – purportedly asking for permission to present his information while concealing the fact that it had already asked him to do so. And if this was the case, the GMC would seem to have been complicit in this contrived fiction.
Then consider the timing of all this. Deer says the GMC approached him for information after it had announced its own investigation into Wakefield and his colleagues. Deer’s Sunday Times article appeared on February 22 2004. On February 23, the Times reported:
Investigators for the GMC would speak to Dr Wakefield before deciding what action to take. A GMC spokesman said: ‘We are concerned by the allegations’.
On February 24 the Daily Mail reported that the GMC
said it would be considering what action may be necessary.
On February 25, Deer wrote his letter to the GMC accusing Wakefield and his colleagues of serious professional misconduct. At that stage, the GMC had merely said it was considering what action to take. So whether the GMC approached him before he wrote that letter or not, it was Deer whose complaint was fundamental to the eventual GMC hearing and whose allegations – reinforced by two further letters of complaint to the GMC during 2004 — have formed the bulk of, if not all, the matters it has been investigating.
The GMC itself said Deer’s role was confusing; indeed, its lawyers’ letter to him was apparently in response to his appeal to clear up the confusion. But the question of who actually made the first approach to whom is surely beside the point — as is the distinction between ‘complainant’ and ‘informant’, which is clearly a technicality resulting solely from the fact that Deer was not himself personally involved with these doctors. By any standard, his letter of February 25 was a complaint to the GMC.
The overwhelmingly important point — reinforced by these letters —remains that Deer was absolutely central to the GMC’s investigation. Deer did not merely supply information. His letter laid before the GMC allegations of serious professional misconduct. Moreover, whatever its technical status in the eyes of the GMC it was presented as a formal complaint, giving the full names of the doctors and their registered medical practitioner numbers and phrased in officialese. The GMC lawyers’ letter refers to further meetings with him on 24 February 2005 and 7 March 2005. None of this involvement was mentioned in his story in last week’s Sunday Times.
Joseph,
Please do not put words into my mouth.
Thank you.
Thank God for doctors like Professor Walker-Smith, Professor Simon Murch and Dr. Andrew Wakefield.
What makes me very sad it that research had to be stopped because of a journalist who was not medically qualified decided to make his own diagnosis of the children’s conditions. A journalist who not only attacks doctors but also attacks parents of autistic who are fighting for justice for their sick children.
It just occured to me that it is quite comical that after more than 100 days evidence at the GMC Brian Deer can only find one sentence he can quote in the Sunday Times!
Either provide a precedent that shows a journalist cannot or should not offer evidence to an investigative commission, or admit you’re making up a standard that is irrelevant, for the only purpose of obfuscating and distracting.
You clearly admitted tacitly that you cannot show the allegations are false.
Can you admit that saying “the allegations have been shown to be false” is intellectually dishonest?
Let’s see if Isabella Thoma, Fish and Stone can tell the difference between intellectual honesty and intellectual dishonesty.
100 days to write one sentence i thought Mr Deer was an expert on medical matters?Just as well he isnt you would die before you got the prescription..
While looking around I noticed the same message on two blogs I go to, and then I googled the tinyurl link used, and noticed that yesterday Clifford Miller spammed a similar message on several blogs:
“It turns out journalist Brian Deer made it up:-
“Sunday Times Journalist Made Up Wakefield MMR Data Fixing Allegation”:
http://tinyurl.com/djbtzq
And he was helping the US Justice Dept sink 4500 US kids claims for vaccine damage compensation – what kind of normal journalist does that? Ans: none.
“US Federal Court, US Justice Dept & The Sunday Times – More Questions Than Answers”
http://tinyurl.com/ac5xkt”
Well, since Deer did not testify on the Autism Omnibus cases, I am not sure how he helped “sink” the claims (it was pretty clear that the testimony from Chadwick and Bustin pretty much discredited Wakefield, plus the complete idiocy of the some of the petitioner’s “experts”, like Vera “I use their library and I go to their parties” Byers).
Under UK law, is this spamming by Mr. Miller an example of libel?
Joseph
Simply look for an answer in all that was said earlier which was ,if Mr Deer attended to the Judge Eady complaint letters when it arose none of the above speculation and evidence would have arisen ..so ask yourself why Mr Deer is not willing to show the letters? because quite simply it would jeopardise his position as journo ,complainer, feeder of accusations ,compromise journo standards, the list goes on ,and on, and on..
,
Show the Judge Eady letters simple as that and show everyone in the world that Mr Deer isn’t false and the Wakefield case in the GMC doesn’t stem from Mr Deer(seriously)
Joseph,
What makes you think that Brian Deer is telling the truth?
What evidence do you have against the parents on the front line of all of this?
You’re changing the subject and answering a question with another. These are the questions of interest that you haven’t answered:
1. Can you admit that saying “the allegations have been shown to be false” is intellectually dishonest?
2. Can you produce a precedent that shows it’s improper for journalists to voluntarily submit their findings to investigative commissions? (If you can’t, you’re clearly making up a standard.)
Anne, you joined the discussion quite late and you really need to be aware of all the posts on this thread especially the ones by Brian Deer, He has laid out succinctly his relationship to the GMC enquiry. It’s minimal apart from agreeing to supply some his files. He also said that basically the GMC did their own data gathering from around three dozen sources including children’s medical records. The JABs crowd here are strenuously ignoring the common sense explanation in favour of conspiracy theory or some really poorly written pieces like anti-vaxxer Barbara Fischkin, who has admitted to doing autism-vaccine lite in her latest piece.
Your point about Wakefield having to overcome Bustin et al is well made but just watch the JABs loons ignore it. The more telling the point the more they will do so.
Unfortunately they think they’re entitled to all kinds of informational largesse from Deer. Fortunately Deer seems to know them pretty well so there won’t be any forthcoming.
They may be loud but there’s few of them. Even the frothing at the mouth at the Editor of the Times with threats of losing his job among other nasties emanates from one site in the US.
How come we attracted these folks I can’t say. They seem to want to repeat themselves endlessly and maybe don’t have too much to do of an evening.
Hi, Alyric. My point, maybe somewhat clumsily made, was that the issue of whether Brian Deer was a “complainant” or not is a red herring. Doesn’t matter. It’s just an attempt to deflect attention away from the real issues.
I have to admit that I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the Wakefield GMC proceeding or the Wakefield libel cases. I just read for the first time Judge Eady’s December 2004 discovery order in the Wakefield v. Channel 4 libel case and saw that the Judge ordered Wakefield to turn over to the defendants – including Brian Deer – the documents that the GMC provided to Wakefield in connection with the GMC investigation. Holy crap, filing that libel case was a giant mistake!
December 2006, that is.
Brian Deer and his tireless Deerites are all showing symptoms of Swine fever (characterized by high fever, lack of appetite, diarrhea, and lethargy). The majority of which, are spending more time on blogs, than actually doing anything of real significance. Certainly not, encompassing caring individuals. They also don’t realise the numbers affected over the MMR issue, totally underestimate them, they only offer suppositions of harm and misleading of the masses (their own doing), They also think if Wakefield et al go down it will finish people off, lol. Wakefield’s doing alright; he’s not exactly in the gutter is he. He is still endeavouring to find answer’s which is more than many others can say. A massive waste of time and money thrown in a direction which is stonewalling progress on any front in the pursuit to discover causation to many disabilities and Brian Deer seems pleased as punch with himself. If anything he has succeeded in making Wakefield a martyr to many.
Why? It wasn’t the subject of his piece. The subject was the information he unearthed about Dr Wakefield’s studies.
Nice attempt at diversion, though.
You may notice that I wasn’t impressed with that piece.
https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=1899
Alyric says
“You really need to be aware of all the posts on this thread especially the ones by Brian Deer, He has laid out succinctly his relationship to the GMC enquiry. It’s minimal apart from agreeing to supply some his files. He also said that basically the GMC did their own data gathering from around three dozen sources including children’s medical records”
Yes Anne, he is still using the children’s data to make sensational stories out of them. Why is he so determined to do this. He is only showing himself up for the callous and sad person he is so he can get his points across and add to his collection of trophies for his mantle piece, which I would imagine he has a shrine attached, dedicated to himself.
I’m not sure where this thread is going. Fishy, Stone and Thomas can do nothing to answer any question on the meat of Brian’s reports simply falling back on saying ‘he shouldn’t have said them’ over and over again. And we go round and round and round.
Unless there’s any _great_ reason for keeping this alive I think I’m going to shut it down.
Run along there Kev then with your tail between your legs like the good sheep that you are. Only joking about the tail.
Sullivan
Goodness, I make a telling point about about Deer’s one sentence quote from the entire GMC hearing (Susan Davies) and I am being distracting – but it was you who raised it in the first place. Now, that is being distracting!
Kev
Not being sure where the thread is going is, of course, and excellent reason for shutting it down. By far the safest thing, I would say.
“Unless there’s any great reason for keeping this alive I think I’m going to shut it down.”
I was hoping you’d say that. Those three are just sticking their fingers in their ears and saying, “La, la, la”, and you can’t talk any sense into them. Anti-vaxers are impervious to logic.
“I was hoping you’d say that. Those three are just sticking their fingers in their ears and saying, “La, la, la”, and you can’t talk any sense into them. Anti-vaxers are impervious to logic.”
Clay, I wonder who is actually doing that – I have answered a lot of points even if people don’t like the answers. Please note that the so-called ant-vaxxers did vaccinate their children. This is just ad hominem junk.
Yes, close the comments. These people are very silly.
its very simple the questions posted by the self worshipers on here have been answered by us the non self worshipers .Links for instance to Dr Wakefield’s comments have been posted, what could be a better answer but a direct, direction, directly to Dr Wakefield’s response refuting Mr Deer’s “false rumours”. Obviously not the response expected hence your disappointment. on here
I came across this forum and was intrigued by the various comments and not least the Judge Eady letters. So far as I can see, quite simply if Mr Deer had published his Judge Eady letters the rumours circulated just now ,and gathering Kudos rapidly concerning why Mr Deer wont release the Judge Eady Letters Of Complaint would have knocked 80% of them on the head. Simply one cannot afford to ignore such serious allegations such as the Spectator ,et-al of why non publishing of The Judge Eady letters, but as the rumours rumble on un challenged they gather speed and Kudos similar to the content of Mr Deer’s articles , rumours backed with no scientific evidence except his own expert opinion ..well then that’s ok then? Needless to say not one self worshiper asking Mr Deer for the evidence to back up rumours of clinical falsity. not that im surprised but would just thought I would also ask a pointless question to match the other pointless questions asked of us and in whole answered. .shame about the Judge Eady letters?
In what way are you using the “La, la, la”,
I do recall Brian Deer saying in the Times article that is what children with special needs do.
Nothing to do with _safe_ John, but very much to do with being booooored with your inability to parse English.
Guys, look. The game is up. Wakefield’s science is shit and established by both science and now a US court that has examined said science to be shit. Its also now been shown that St Andy altered his results somewhat to make sure they reflected his desires.
What exactly are you defending him for? Or is it that you cannot stand to be exposed for dupes? There’s no shame in that. He screwed you lot over most of all.
And having engineered the last word, thread closed 🙂